The closure of a poultry slaughterhouse in the Jezreel Valley in Israel has provoked intense anger of the 200-strong workforce.

Yesterday an interesting article appeared in the Israel newspaper,
the Haaretz. The article describes how on Sunday the Off Haemek poultry
slaughterhouse in the Jezreel Valley in Israel was closed by the
bosses. The 200 workers employed at the slaughterhouse reacted
immediately. They organised a demonstration outside the factory, but
also stared burning tyres and releasing the chickens from their cages.

The
CEO, Shuki Ogen, went to the factory yesterday, Monday, to negotiate
with the workers but on attempting to leave the site, such was the
anger of the workers, that he was pelted with stones.

The
chairperson of the workers’ committee, Motti Sa'ar, called on the
recently elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provide a loan to
keep the factory open. We shall see how ready Netanyahu is to intervene
on behalf of the workers.

We do not know how this dispute will
end, but no doubt Netanyahu has more important priorities, such as
cutting pensions and welfare for the ordinary working people of Israel,
while at the same time maintaining Israel’s powerful war machine to
keep control over the Palestinian Territories.

No doubt, the
workers at the Off Haemek poultry slaughterhouse will have been told
that the threat to their livelihood comes from the Palestinians. Their
real enemy is their boss and the government of Israel that allows such
conditions to emerge.

After the article we published on the railway workers’ strike, Railway workers on strike in Israel,
this is another example of class conflict in Israel. These incidents
will grow as the living conditions of ordinary working people continue
to deteriorate in the present economic situation. Although it is still
early days, class conflict can only go in one direction, upwards. And
in the long run, on this basis, many workers in Israel will be forced
to come into conflict with the Zionist ruling class, which while
defending the idea of a homeland for the Jews, in practice oppress both
Jewish workers and the Palestinian people.